Saturday, 23 December 2006

Several clipsofonead (sung by Ben Robinson). It's apparently a parody of a classic UK Christmas show. We aren't at all familiar with it here, though I recognise the tune from BriTV references to it, and many of the scenes they fly past. I'm informed one I scene don't know is the Falkirk Wheel (photos & some info at www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/ falkirk/ falkirkwheel/), a modern rotating boat wheel.

Wednesday, 20 December 2006

Though he worried about the state of the world from time to time, it never stopped him. And when we'd talk about what things might be like in twenty-five, fifty or a hundred years, he said he knew there would be difficult challenges ahead, but he believed we were up to the task. He believed in human ingenuity and compassion, in thinking long-term instead of short, in putting our many differences and superstitions aside. He believed in a better tomorrow. He believed in us.

Carl Sagan died on December 20th, 1996 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, with wife Ann Druyan and other family members at his side.To many of the space artists Carl Sagan was known as among the greatest patrons of our art.He crossed the substantial gulf between scientist and public educator. His career spanned the transformation of the solar System from tiny telescopic objects to places seen and understood from human and mechanical experience. Unveiling this reality of our cosmic situation was part of his life, and spreading the appreciation of these truths and their implications was another aspect of his life.

Tuesday, 19 December 2006

This morning on the way to work I was attacked by a large umbrella out on the footpath, very like this one. It was a cool, windy morning and the people had just put it up and left it without anything holding it down. Maybe they were inside getting weights. Thankfully I say that a passerby ran in to help, then the people from the shop dashed out and dragged it away.

Let me urge you to first put the weights on an umbrella before opening it.

A fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

Contains 101,102 trials, from April 1674 to October 1834[1834 to 1913 Proceedings Digitisation Project Underway]

Additional Eighteenth-Century Sources to be Digitised in New ProjectWe have received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to digitise a wide range of related printed and manuscript sources to create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London. This project, 'Plebeian Lives and the Making of Modern London, 1690-1800', will make it possible for the first time to reconstruct how 'ordinary' Londoners interacted with various government and charitable institutions in the course of their daily lives.

Monday, 4 December 2006

. . . or glorious. Something approaching the experience of the Sublime, perhaps — something that Lessons of Darkness (Lektionen in Finsternis) most definitely touches.The summary includes "What must have been like hell itself is presented to the viewer in such beautiful sights and beautiful music that one has to be fascinated by it." which is a very good summary.